Sunday cooking

I've been obsessed with Smitten Kitchen lately, and today I made two Smitten-inspired recipes.

For breakfast, we had lemon-ricotta pancakes. I could never resist ordering ricotta pancakes I saw them on a brunch menu (past tense because, post-baby, I can't remember when we've gone out for brunch). I tried making them once but they turned out flat and soggy. These were perfect, thanks to the Smitten pancake 101 technique. Usually I'm impatient and try to flip too early, but this time I held back. Three minutes on one side, two minutes on the other, and they were golden-brown, round, and guest-worthy.

Speaking of guest-worthy brunches, we didn't have this today, but last weekend I brought home fresh mesclun greens (or mescaline, as served by the more psychedelic restaurants) and ate them topped with an egg gently cooked in ikra. If you don't happen to have an Armenian grocery in your neighborhood, a similar stewed tomato-eggplant-pepper-onion mixture would work. It was delicious, and would have been even better with the greens lightly tossed with vinaigrette. In fact, this plus the pancakes and some sliced fresh fruit would be just about the perfect brunch. Maybe with some fresh bread too.

For dinner I made a variation of this pumpkin soup. I chopped up an onion and two shallots and sauteed them in olive oil with four cloves of garlic (actually little frozen cubes of garlic, since I was trying to keep K occupied while I was cooking). I dumped in a big spoonful of cumin, an undrained can of TJ's organic black beans, half a can of diced tomatoes, a can of pumpkin puree, and 2 cups of beef broth, and let it simmer for a little while. Part of the way through I added some chopped scallions and corn. At the end, I stirred in the juice of half a lemon. I toasted some pumpkin seeds, which we sprinkled on top along with a dollop of fat-free sour cream and the green part of the scallions. I didn't bother to puree it, and it was a nice Southwestern-tasting chunky soup, and totally healthy. The pumpkin taste wasn't really noticeable. I would definitely make this again, maybe with baked tortillas or quesadillas on the side.